The picture of Heinz Guderian, like Erwin Rommel or Walter Model, probably evokes an image of a steely eyed man leading from the front and, almost invariably, striking a commanding pose. This is no accident. The leading panzer generals were accompanied by so-called ‘propaganda companies’, who took thousands of images and framed the war around bold and dashing commanders triumphing over the enemy by guile, intellect and sheer force of personality. The published images of National Socialism’s warrior leaders had to reflect this stylised man, and Guderian was uniquely skilled at performing the part, while also understanding the difference between war in reality and war in the public imagination. Yet if the stoic man with a confident smile was a front for the camera, who was the real Guderian? Who was the man behind the general?
For most German generals, questions like this would be impossible to answer, but Guderian left a trove of personal letters to his wife Margarete portraying the war, and his own struggles in it, in the starkest of terms. The contrast between the Guderian of German
